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List Price: $24.95 | | Label: Wellspring Media
Salesrank: 48333
Released: July 10, 2007 |
| Our Price: $17.59 |
| Used Price: $14.50 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Logan is a soft spoken and lonely 13 year old boy with a crush. Unlike his equally lonely friend Joey, who obsesses over the sexual exploits of the popular boys, Logan is fixated on the boys themselves, particularly Rodeo Walker. Logan's infatuation with Rodeo inspires him to create a new persona named Leah. Leah and Rodeo grow close through whispered late night phone calls, and when Leah agrees to meet Rodeo face to face it is Logan who must finally prove that he can ask for what he so achingly wants.
Description of Wild Tigers I Have Known:
Arriving with the Gus Van Sant stamp of approval, Wild Tigers I Have Known blurs the line between indie film and experimental art. With the aid of cinematographer Aaron Platt, Cam Archer fills his debut with dreamy visuals, like Wong Kar-Wai set loose in Santa Cruz. The story concerns 13-year-old Logan (the full-lipped Malcolm Stumpf), who lives with his frazzled single mother (Fairuza Balk) and harbors a crush on 14-year-old Rodeo (Patrick White). Through a chance meeting, Logan gets to know the object of his lust, and abandons nerdy best friend Joey (the bowl cut-sporting Max Paradise). Rodeo prefers women, so Logan invents a female persona named Leah, who exists only on the phone, to initiate a virtual relationship (Ruth Elliot voices his alter ego). Meanwhile, mountain lions roam the woods, encroaching on human habitation. This concerns Logan, who identifies with the confused cats. Plus, the school mascot is the tiger--and that's as far as the filmmaker takes his title metaphor. Archer got his start by making shorts with Platt, and Wild Tigers often feels like a short writ large. Filters, dissolves, and ambient sound design contribute to Logan's sense of disorientation. At its most self-indulgent, the film comes dangerously close to the superficial aesthetics of a music video or fragrance ad (the DVD includes Archer's clip for Emily White's title song). For moviegoers tired of creaky comedies about gay first love, where the hero has a spunky gal pal with a sideline in snappy retorts, however, it represents a distinct alternative. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Wild Tigers I Have Known Reviews:
A Point Missed 
2009-06-23 - I think there is a point that most people overlooked. This is set in the late `70s or early 80's. Notice, no computers, no cell phone, and certainly no internet. More importantly the attitudes are more along the lines of the fifties and sixties. Logan has no gay support groups and the students, the straight ones, are afraid of or hate gay people. This makes this a period piece of life thirty years ago. From what I observed currently, Logan, now, would probably admit he's gay, ask Rodeo to the dance, and probably would have been well received.
That said, it does however convey the absolute loneliness as it was back then. Also, the level of self-deception involved and the denial that permeated that era. If Logan actually existed, he'd be in his early forties and seeing this would only shake his head in wonder.
Downside of this movie is it is disjointed and has to be seen several times to get everything out of it.
I'll give it four out of five stars.
more than what it seems 
2009-01-28 - In my opinion (and that's all this is), this movie is more than just a 'coming of age' or 'gay-themed' story. The cinematography and the way the narrative is presented is very much an artistic statement. I think to some people this might seem distracting from the main plot of the movie. However, I feel like this movie is more situational rather than plot-driven, so its context depends on dislocated and sporadic moments and states of mind in the characters, rather than a linear progression of events. The film is as powerful in content as it is in its formal qualities, and should be appreciated for both of these merits.
It is clear that this movie is not intended as a mainstream film production, and perhaps not a mainstream mindset or understanding of narrative.
My two cents, for what it's worth.
Wild Tigers I Have Known
2008-12-24 - This movie is mediocre. I really don't remember anything about this movie to report on. If I had to say thou I would buy this movie over any of the Boys Briefs.
Well, first of all, it breaks your heart
2008-12-17 - All the wild tigers and all the Logans chasing thereafter. A soft,sweet dream of a movie,and brave. To approach the most important person in your life, in this case, Rodeo, and to climb that tender, delicate, so perishable ladder and say I love you, knowing giddily, so perfect, please.
And the bravery pays off--I still live, I am not destroyed--as Logan runs off into the world, knowing finally, he is of worth and immense value. The simplicity, the hard-won complexity, and the naceant knowledge that some day someone will phone Logan, full of fear, and Logan's gentle creamy voice will say back, don't worry, you are safe, relax.
One person's need for another human being in the wild tiger years of adolescence and faith in tomorrow, done in lovely cinematography and summery memory colors, a film of healing, a film of hope.
Expecting conformity in art?
2008-09-05 - Unlike the other 'critics' here, I found this film quirky and ultimately refreshing. The director isn't trying "too hard to make a art house film", rather, he's made something unusually refreshing without blood gore. Since when are art house films supposed to be predictable and pat? Given that the boy's mother is queen of the 'double bind'- "I love you/I hate you", he's desperately trying to deal with that and his burgeoning gay sexuality. Maybe most people in America are now so sated that they are expecting some patent commonalty in gay, coming of age films. The gay community both old and young are about DIVERSITY, not cookie cutting conformity even in how we develop our individual sexualities. My childhood was not like this boy's, but still I empathize with exactly what he went through. What may put off a lot of the viewers is the fact that the boy's fantasies are intermixed with his actual physical reality. That worked in "My Life In Pink", it works here and I think over all the movie is brilliantly posed and executed. Even the very ending was enchanting where the boy waves and runs up the hill like a bunny, how could you not love him?
